


Girls Wanna Have More Fun

by katekane



Category: Xena: Warrior Princess
Genre: Bechdel Test Pass, Bonfires, F/F, First Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 15:47:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12915078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katekane/pseuds/katekane
Summary: Gabrielle’s encounter with the vampire-like bacchaes and in particular her encounter with Xena’s exquisite neck has made her reconsider the nature of their relationship. She is starting to realise what she wants – but will she ever get her point across to the oblivious warrior princess? First time story.This is a continuation of the season 2 episode “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”. The story reveals key plot points from that particular episode and might not make much sense if you haven’t watched it.





	Girls Wanna Have More Fun

**Author's Note:**

> This work was originally posted on my LiveJournal profile back in 2012.

“Guys – wait up!”

Joxer’s voice halted Gabrielle’s train of thoughts. Its course had been set by the odd experiences of the past few hours: She had been dancing, bitten, turned into a bacchae, and she had bitten her very best friend. The latter had only lasted a few moments, but they were imprinted on her brain and she could think of nothing else. Until Joxer cut in, that is.

“Hey, so what’s next?” he panted, struggling to catch up with the two women.

“Next, huh?” For once Gabrielle wished they were both sitting on Argo. The horse would have provided the means to shake this pestering stalker off. “Ah, we – we fight Medusa, right?” Gods, she wanted him gone, and the words just fell out of her mouth… Still, spontaneous lies were a bit out of character for her, and she glanced quickly at Xena for approval.

The corner of the warrior princess’ mouth curled upwards as she played along: “Right.”

It was all the encouragement Gabrielle needed. “Well, you know, the one with snakes all over her head. And, and- one look, and the mightiest of men is turned into stone!”

“Right.” Just from her voice she could tell the smile on Xena’s face was widening.

Joxer, on the other hand, was growing visibly pale. “Stone, huh? Oh, hay, listen, um- I just remembered, it’s my mom’s birthday. And she’s getting, you know, the... I better get back home, but, um-- I’ll catch up with you guys a little later.”

Praise the gods, he was buying it. Gabrielle had to fight hard to keep the cheerfulness out of her voice when she assured him: “No problem!”

And he was off. And the train of thought back on tracks. Going full speed in a direction that almost rendered the otherwise eloquent bard speechless. She wanted something, something she couldn’t verbalise properly yet, but it was making her head spin and forcing her to act, whether she could find the right words or not.

“You know,” she hesitantly began, “you almost died trying to save me.” Her casual tone was contradicted by the way she was observing her friend, making sure she had Xena’s full attention. “…I really want to do something to thank you,” she concluded. It was ridiculously vague and unspecific, but it was all she could muster at the moment and clearly not enough.

The intended meaning flew right past her oblivious warrior friend, or maybe she was being distracted by Joxer’s cry from afar: “Farewell, my warrior chums!”

Xena glanced in the direction of Joxer’s voice, then smiled at Gabrielle. “You just did…”

Gabrielle returned the smile, but her heart was sinking. Getting rid of Joxer was not at all what she’d meant.

 

* * * * *

The fire was giving off a cosy, comforting, crackling sound as little twigs and dry leaves gave into the flames, but Gabrielle was anything but relaxed. All their routine chores had been completed – Argo was fed, the camp was set up, they had eaten and cleaned up the dishes. Gabrielle couldn’t come up with any more tasks to distract her from the scenes being replayed over and over in her mind. And to be honest, she wasn’t really sure she wanted them gone… The warm, prickling sensation they induced in her was a little unsettling, but not exactly unpleasant, and she found herself actually encouraging the flashbacks by sneaking peaks at Xena’s bared neck.

The warrior princess was sitting across from her, on the other side of the camp fire, and in spite of the dim light the dark spots left by the fangs Gabrielle had shortly been equipped with were easily visible.  
The flashback replayed itself once more. Xena standing on a rock in the underground catacombs, an uncharacteristic look of resignation on her face as she tilted her head and offered Gabrielle her exposed jugular vein. “Gabrielle,” the deep alto half begged, half commanded; “do it.” And Gabrielle, driven solely by the bacchae’s urge to drink blood, had obeyed. When Bacchus was finally defeated that urge had disappeared along with the fangs. However, the image of Xena with her head thrown back in the pale moonlight, the taste and feel of her skin and the small moan escaping the warrior princess’ lips as Gabrielle’s teeth sunk into her – they remained. In fact Gabrielle could think of nothing else.

She discretely let her gaze travel from the small puncture marks at the base of her friend’s exquisite neck to her slightly squared jaw and the soft, featherlike hair just below her ears. The flames of the fire cast golden highlights on her collar bones, making shadows dance in the hollows. Gabrielle involuntarily licked her lips.

“You are unusually quiet tonight. Is something troubling you?”

And an amazing mouth. So full and soft and perfectly matched to that deep voice, which seemed to make the prickling feeling in Gabrielle’s limbs implode and contract to a single ball of electricity just below the navel. She tried to blink the flashbacks away. She had to get her body back under control before she could answer.

“If it’s about that bite…”

Xena caught her gaze as she pronounced the last word, and the emphasis it seemed to put on it made the electric ball in Gabrielle’s abdomen shoot little jolts out in all directions.

“…then I don’t hold it against you. I know you weren’t yourself when you did it,” Xena added, and the jolts subsided as quickly as they had appeared. For a second Gabrielle had thought that this was it, that they were finally on the same page, their trains of thought in perfect synchrony, but in fact her friend was as oblivious as ever. It was becoming too much to bear.

“No, that’s not it,” she began, then ran out of words.

 _Gabrielle… Do it_ , the alto voice echoed in her mind, and she took a deep breath before jumping on that darn train, wherever it might lead them.

“Xena, when you found me dancing with those girls… Bacchaes, I mean… What exactly happened?”

“You mean, you don’t remember?” From the other side of the campfire, Xena watched her closely, expectantly.

Gabrielle shrugged. “I remember bits and pieces, but it’s all a bit fuzzy.”

“That’s understandable. You were entranced by them. And later on, after the transformation, you weren’t exactly your usual sensible self,” Xena said, a hint of humour in her voice, which Gabrielle decided to ignore.

“I know, but I chose to dance with them, Xena. And I let them… get close.” Once again, she was being vague with her descriptions, but it was the best she could do at the moment. She stared into Xena’s eyes, desperately trying to get the true meaning of the words across.

“Well, they were bacchaes. Getting people to let down their guards is their field of expertise. You shouldn’t beat yourself up about it,” Xena said lightly, but Gabrielle was sure she saw something change in her eyes. A slight expansion of the pupils, perhaps. In any case it gave her the courage to continue.

“But they didn’t look like bacchaes when I approached them, Xena. They looked like ordinary women, except for the way they danced with each other… There was nothing ordinary about that.”

Xena didn’t say anything, but was clearly paying more attention to this story than she ever had to any of the bard’s tales.

“Well, they got very close,” Gabrielle continued. “Their bodies were constantly grazing each other, almost teasingly. Not quite touching, but holding the promise of touch. Their gazes, on the other hand, were inseparable. Saturated with this unbelievably intense longing. Actually a bit…” She paused for the tiniest part of a second before finishing the sentence: “A bit like this look we’re sharing right now.”

”Gabrielle, what exactly do you mean?”

From across the campfire Gabrielle could swear Xena was holding her breath back, and it made her lose her own breath. When the bard continued, her voice sounded like it belonged to someone else; hoarse and airy at the same time.

“I think that’s the reason I… Why I was drawn to those women in the first place. It struck a familiar chord somewhere inside me. What they were doing, the way they affected each other with just a look… It was so similar to-”

“Gabrielle, where exactly did they bite you?” Xena interrupted, her voice possibly even deeper than normally and her eyes visibly darkening as they found Gabrielle’s small hands and followed their lead. They were resting on the bard’s thighs and she lifted them slowly, hesitantly, as if letting them travel up her body without actually touching it until slender fingers found the right shoulder strap of her top. She expertly untied it and peeled back part of the cloth until one perfectly rounded breast with tiny bite marks was exposed to the chill night air and Xena’s look. Her nipple instantly hardened at the encounter.

Silence. Just the crackling from the fire, which wasn’t nearly enough to drown out the bard’s racing pulse. It was making her head pound, her abdomen contract, and her mouth dry, and if Xena didn’t do something, say something to break the tension, then Gabrielle feared she might actually faint.

“I think…” Xena began, getting up on her feet and turning away from Gabrielle. The implicit rejection felt like a stab in the chest and nearly made the bard cough, until Xena finished her sentence halfway between the fire and her saddlebacks a few feet away. “…it would probably be best if you got some balm on those bite marks.”

Gabrielle’s body counted the steps as Xena closed the distance between them. Each one was emphasised by another electrical jolt from the ball in her abdomen, until her friend finally kneeled down right in front of her and the electricity became constant. Her body was one, big humming ball, as Xena finally touched her. Like so many times before, she marvelled at how gentle Xena’s warrior hands could be as she carefully massaged the balm into Gabrielle’s right breast. The liquid was supposed to be soothing and numbing, but the effect was quite the opposite. Every inch of the bard’s skin touched by Xena’s fingertips was left tingling, screaming for more, and for the first time ever Gabrielle allowed herself to lean into the touch.

Xena didn’t flinch, and Gabrielle took that as an invitation. She reached out, held Xena’s face between both hands and kissed her. Her friend’s lips were as soft as she’d imagined and the contact, at long last, overwhelmed the bard. Instinct kicked in, as she parted her own lips and caressed Xena’s with the tip of her tongue. The warrior princess did not break the kiss, but she did nothing to return it either; she remained frozen under Gabrielle’s ministrations, and after a little while Gabrielle pulled away and caught her friend’s gaze.

Xena’s eyes were still dark, her hand still cupping Gabrielle’s breast, but the signals she was sending out were mixed, and the bard was fed up with reading subtext. She wanted answers.

“What’s wrong, Xena? I feel so certain that you want this as much as I do, and yet you won’t kiss me back. If this is all in my head, then please tell me…”

Desperation sneaked into the bard’s voice and Xena instantly reacted to it. “No, no,” she quickly assured her, placing both hands on Gabrielle’s shoulders, gently caressing the front of the her upper arms. “It’s not in your head. It’s not.”

Gabrielle visibly relaxed. “Then what’s holding you back?” She, in turn, caressed Xena’s cheeks with her thumbs and gave her friend the most open, patient look she had in her, trying to convey the fact that she would accept any answer as long as it was truthful.

“It’s just…” Xena averted her eyes. “Given my past, I’m probably not the best person for you to get involved with,” she said with a forced snicker that exposed more than concealed the pain behind the statement. “And I’m afraid you might not understand what this might… lead to,” she added, almost shyly, and Gabrielle couldn’t keep the smile out of her voice.

This was so much simpler than she had feared.

“Xena, I made the conscious decision to get involved with you a very long time ago. And although I may need a bit of guidance, I do have a pretty good idea as to where this could lead… I am a member of the Amazon tribe, remember.”

The tough warrior woman actually blushed at that last remark, and no outside observer could have guessed that Xena was in fact the more experienced of the two, as Gabrielle got to her feet and led Xena to their bedspread.

“As I was saying,” Gabrielle said huskily and untied the remaining strap of her top, “you nearly died for me today.” She held Xena’s gaze as the top fell to the ground. “I really want to do something to thank you.” Her skirt and undergarments gave into gravity as well; she stepped out of them and finally stood stark naked in front of her friend.

“I won’t bite,” Gabrielle promised, as she took the remaining steps towards her friend and grabbed her hands. “Not much, anyway,” she cheekily added, and the warrior princess visibly gulped.   
She really does have an exquisite neck, Gabrielle thought as she pulled her close; but it’s nothing compared to that mouth. And this time, when Gabrielle covered it with hers, Xena more than returned the kiss.

**THE END**


End file.
